I lead Citrix (NASDAQ:CTXS) world wide advocacy efforts with a particular focus on increasing the volume, reach and influence of Citrix's extensive portfolio of cloud solutions used by more than 260,000 customers and 100 million end users across the globe.

I'm recognized as an early innovator in the cloud computing space, as the founder of Enomaly in 2004 (Acquired by Virtustream in 2012). Enomaly was among the first to develop a self-service infrastructure as a service (IaaS) platform (ECP) circa 2005, as well as SpotCloud (2011) the first commodity style cloud computing Spot Market.

Intel Technology Journal 2012: The Past, The Present, and The Future of Cloud Computing

I am happy to announce that a special cloud computing issue of Intel’s Technology Journal has been published. The Intel Technology Journal is a peer-reviewed technical journal published by Intel that highlights the development of different technologies on a quarterly basis. I was given the honor of writing both the foreword as well as a paper focusing on “The Past, The Present, and The Future of Cloud Computing,” which has been included in its entirety below.

In this issue of the Intel Technology Journal we explore some of the technologies, trends, opportunities as well as the challenges facing this exciting transition in our industry. We’ve assembled an experienced team of authors and contributors at the forefront of cloud computing who will act as your guide through this new world we call “the cloud.”

The year 2012 marks an important milestone in the emergence of cloud computing, including significant industry collaboration. We’ve seen a remarkable transformation in how we interact with Internet technologies on an individual basis and collectively as an industry. From new industry alliances to open application stacks, never before have we witnessed such a rapid transformation in how we work and interact. Often described as a revolution, cloud computing is an important transition, a paradigm shift in IT delivery. It refocuses how we view IT while creating new opportunities and challenges. Cloud computing has the potential to transform the design, development, and deployment of next-generation technologies.

To say cloud computing has entered the collective consciousness of the IT world would be putting it mildly. Over the last few years we’ve seen cloud computing emerge at the heart of a radical shift in the way we consume, deploy, and utilize computing technology within our digital lives. In this article I will explore the roots of the trend over several decades from desktop to mobile, to federated markets, as well as consider its future.

A Brief History

Cloud computing has been referred to as revolutionary, even magical. Like most trends in IT, cloud computing is a combination of a number of underlying trends that have long been in the works, a kind of evolutionary blend of our previous successes and failures. A key term driving the adoption of cloud computing has been the term “the cloud.” In essence the concept of “the cloud” is as a metaphor for the Internet as an operational environment where applications are utilized over the Internet rather than through more traditional means such as a desktop. No longer are users bound by the limitations of a single computing device, but instead are free to experience a multitude of devices, platforms, and mobility (both socially and physically).

To understand this trend we must follow its roots, ones that go back as far the 1960s as seen with Douglas F. Parkhill who first envisioned the coming trend. In his 1966 book The Challenge of the Computer Utility[1], Parkhill, a Canadian electrical engineer, predicted that the computer industry would come to resemble a public utility “in which many remotely located users are connected via communication links to a central computing facility.” A primary tenant of today’s cloud platforms, Parkhill’s “Computing Utility” vision spoke directly to the coming shift we see taking place today.

For many years, Parkhill’s computing utility concept remained unrealized, in part because of the immaturity of the underlying networks and technologies themselves.

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